Mr. Edward H. Perry
Assistant City Attorney
City of Dallas
Office of the City Attorney
2014 Main Street, Room 206
Dallas, Texas 75201

OR99-1470

Dear Mr. Perry:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Texas
Public Information Act, chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned
ID# 124571.

The City of Dallas (the "city") received an open records request for, among other things, "a
complete copy of [Redbird Development Corporation's] new lease" with the city. You
explain that a new lease has not yet been negotiated, and that the new lease currently exists
only in draft form. You seek to withhold the draft of the lease pursuant to, inter alia, section
552.105 of the Government Code.

Section 552.105(2) of the Government Code protects "information relating to . . . appraisals
or purchase price of real or personal property for a public purpose prior to the formal award
of contracts for the property." Section 552.105 is designed to protect a governmental body
in its planning and negotiating position in regard to particular transactions, including
proposed lease agreements. Open Records Decision No. 348 (1982). You contend section
552.105 protects the draft lease because

the City's negotiating position would be damaged [if the draft lease
was released to the public] because the City is still negotiating terms
and conditions with a potential lessee. The potential lessee does not
know all the terms and conditions the City is willing to add, delete, or
modify in order to conclude the transaction. Furthermore, if these lease
negotiations fail, the City may have to commence new lease
negotiations with another entity. The City, in either case, does not
want other entities to know what terms and conditions it is willing to
amend in order to conclude a deal.

Given these arguments, we believe you have met your burden of demonstrating the
applicability of section 552.105(2) to the information at issue. The city therefore may
withhold the draft lease at this time.(1)

We are resolving this matter with an informal letter ruling rather than with a published open
records decision. This ruling is limited to the particular records at issue under the facts
presented to us in this request and should not be relied upon as a previous determination
regarding any other records. If you have questions about this ruling, please contact our
office.

1. Please note, however, that the protection of section 552.105 ends once the transaction has been completed. See Open Records Decision No. 222 (1979). Because we resolve your request under section 552.105, we need not address at this time your other arguments for non-disclosure.